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msw
Asked: 2010-12-26 01:19:29 +0800 CST

Why does update-mime-database complain about uri/rtspt and other unusual types?

  • 772

When running update-mime-database - usually automatically launched by apt-get - why do I reliably get complaints like:

Unknown media type in type 'all/all'
Unknown media type in type 'all/allfiles'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/mms'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmst'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmsu'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/pnm'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspt'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspu'
Unknown media type in type 'fonts/package'
Unknown media type in type 'interface/x-winamp-skin'

It doesn't seem to be hurting anything, but chronic errors during updates risk obscuring an error that I do care about.

updates apt aptitude mime-type

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Actually you can fix it simply by doing

    sudo rm /usr/share/mime/packages/kde.xml 
sudo update-mime-database /usr/share/mime

    Here is a quote from Ana Guerrero in 2008 so you'd think it would be fixed by now.

    Those fake mimetypes are installed by kdelibs with the file /usr/share/mime/packages/kde.xml since long time ago. They are kept in kde4libs.

    In a recent version, update-mime-database became verbose about this unknown types, and that is why you get this error when you update stuff and then update-mime-database is run. It is unlikely to be changed.

    • 27

  2. That's a problem with update-mime-database and the MIME standard itself. Originally it was supposed to be extensible. But the IETF dumbed it down, and no new major mime types are registered (application/* is used as undifferentiated catch-all). The reasoning/surmise behind that being, that few tools are designed to work correctly with new MIME types.

    Now update-mime-database at least doesn't fall over when it sees pseudo classifiers like uri/ and fonts/ or interface/. So I assume it only complains because other apps might actually trip over them. strings gave me following list of probably built-in list of "safe" MIME types:

    • text
    • application
    • image
    • audio
    • inode
    • video
    • message
    • model
    • multipart
    • x-content
    • x-epoc

    Meaning it would nag over any other x- or x. and vnd. or prs. major mime types. Curiously inode/ is anything but an official media type.

    • 5

  3. It appears that there are a pile of KDE libraries that bring in these otherwise Gnome unfriendly mime-type definitions. In my case, the libraries were added as dependencies to a KDE application package that I later uninstalled.

    To remove the pile of KDE libraries and their associated /usr/share/mime entries, I used:

    sudo apt-get purge kdelibs-bin kdelibs-data 
sudo apt-get autoremove --purge
sudo update-mime-database /usr/share/mime

    Do be careful that the first command does not force removal of a package you need before you confirm the removal. Getting rid of kdelibs-bin will then make a large set of packages unneeded and ready for autoremove.

    I found the basis for this fix in an old bug report for Intrepid Ibex.

    • 2

  4. Backup your /usr/share/mime directory, just in case.

    I solved it by removing all the .xml files on /usr/share/mime directory then run the update command 

    cp -R /usr/share/mime /usr/share/mime_back
find  /usr/share/mime -name *.xml -exec rm -rfv {} +    
update-mime-database /usr/share/mime

    https://askubuntu.com/a/299482/789190.

    https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=469833

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